OUR DEFINITION OF DEMAND GENERATION
There are many ways to define Demand Generation. We define it is as the combination of marketing and sales strategies and tactics that drive new customers to your business, create long lasting customer relationships, and generate repeat business and referrals. But what does that mean in simple terms?
THE ELEMENTS OF DEMAND GENERATION
Each company will have a different demand generation strategy depending on their business type. Some service businesses, like home remodeling contractors, need a long sales cycle to educate their customers on what they do, and how they do it. Other businesses, like plumbers, just need to show they are competent and available when the customer needs them.
But all demand generation starts with a marketing strategy. This strategy should include:
- Identifying your target customers
- Developing messaging and marketing materials to communicate with these target customers along each step of the customer journey from Awareness to Purchase to Referral. This is often known as the marketing funnel
- Using data to make informed decisions based on what works and doesn’t work
Once a company has a clearly defined marketing strategy, they then build out the marketing tactics including:
- Website content
- Search engine marketing
- Blog posts
- Social Media campaigns
- Email or text campaigns
- White papers or e-books
- Webinars
The marketing mix is how you combine different elements of these marketing tactics to reach your potential or current customers to get them to take an action. This could be reading a blog post on why your service is important and how you do it differently, or it could be an offer to come back and buy your service again.
If you aren’t sure how strong your marketing strategy is, download our Marketing Strategy Audit and complete it to see if you have any weak areas you need to focus on. If you have any questions about the sheet or your score, just send us an email.
A DEMAND GENERATION ENGINE POWERS YOUR MARKETING
So now that you know what Demand Generation is, what is a Demand Generation Engine? A Demand Generation Engine is the ongoing marketing process that generates demand for your products and services and drives your company forward over time. Much like a car’s engine drives the car forward.  Just like a car engine doesn’t work if it’s not running, or doesn’t run well without regular a Demand Generation Engine doesn’t work properly if it’s not a complete system that maintained regularly. It’s not enough to build a website and launch it.  The business needs to keep the website up to date, monitor it’s search engine results, create relevant blog posts, and more.Â
Demand Generation is a continuous process that you must continue to work on every day in order for it to work properly.
If you don’t have the time or experience to keep your Demand Generation running well then send us an email and we would be happy to talk to about cost effective solutions that provide a positive ROI on your investment.
